I can't sleep again tonight, but for a very different reason than rodents in my blankets.

Tonight I can't sleep because tomorrow I will be going through the temple for the first time.  I don't think it really hit me until I went to buy all my temple clothes, but it's happening.  Tomorrow I will Covenant with my Heavenly Father.

I don't know exactly what's going to happen, or how everything will be done.  But my heart races at the thought of myself in my white dress, and recognizing things from my family's sealing when I was 8.

I can't help but think of all the things that have led me to this point. Not just the great things, but the hard, hard, hard things that I have had to face head on in my life, and the obstacles that have threatened to stand in my way from this moment.  I am grateful for them, because it brought me closer to the Savior and helped me understand the Atonement.  I am grateful for them because they strengthened my testimony.  I am grateful for those tribulations because they taught me to fight for righteousness, and to make correct choices.


I read 2 Nephi 2:11 again tonight, it reads:

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.



  I am grateful for those hard things because they make this moment even sweeter. 


And I know things will probably get more difficult and my commitment to following the Lord will have to increase 10 fold after tomorrow, but I know that this is what I need to do and I am beyond excited.